Bad Breaks

About the Author

Americans - can't live with them, can't live without them. That
just about sums up the response of Europeans to President Bush's
announcement last week before a gathering of Veterans of Foreign
Wars that his administration intends to reconfigure American troop
deployments abroad in a second term and bring a significant number
home to bases in the United States.

The fact is of course that our allies abroad like nothing better
than to gripe and moan about American foreign policy and military
superiority -- from the safety of the umbrella provided by the very
same American military. This is a distinctly unhealthy attitude,
and it has contributed to the deterioration of relationships within
U.S. military alliances.

In Europe, particularly, there is still little understanding on
the fact that the world changed three years ago, on September 11.
Americans tend to be viewed as obsessive about security and
irrational if they continue to support the U.S. military presence
in Iraq. Europe is in an inward-looking mode, debating the
selection of EU commissioners, the pros and cons of the Euro and
the future of the European Constitution. There is almost no sense
that elsewhere in the world, a great, historic struggle is taking
place between terrorists inspired by radical Islam and the forces
of Western civilization.

In light of that prolonged struggle, however, the U.S. government
is looking at redeployments, During the Cold War, we knew our
adversaries and our potential battlefields. Today's dangers are far
less predictable and far more diffuse. New transformational
technologies came of age during the 1990s, which have changed the
way the U.S. military fights. The global war on terrorism has
changed where it fights. Mobility and speed are of the essence, as
is a more flexible base structure, which takes advantage of new
strategic facts, including the entry of former Warsaw Pact nations
into NATO.

At present, the United States has more than 200,000 troops
stationed overseas. Of them, 116,000 are in Europe, together with
125,000 dependents, and 45,000 support personnel. Deployments are
for three years, rather than on a rotational basis, and extensive
civilian support structure is necessary. This arrangement is
expensive, and it is outdated - and at least until Americans
started to talk about leaving -- it was also quite unpopular in
Germany. Environmental restrictions hampered U.S. military
exercises and German farmers used to grow irate over military jets
frightening their cows. And, of course, anti-Americanism was at
such levels two years ago that Chancellor Schroeder won a hotly
contested election by playing this unsavory card.

As announced by President Bush, up to 70,000 American troops will
be brought home to bases here in the United States and with them
100,000 dependents, mainly from Germany. This will mean significant
savings. It will also mean less time spent abroad during a typical
military career, and less disruption for military families, while
allowing more flexible deployments. The decision has already been
made to bring redeploy some 4,000 troops from South Korea, where a
rotational structure has been the norm.

Not even the New York Times editorial page, which lost no time
denouncing the Bush plan could fine fault with the reasoning behind
it. "The Pentagon is right to stress lighter, more mobile army
brigades. It is also good to aim to reduce the number of job and
location changes in a typical army career . . . . such sensible
steps aimed at raising morale and encouraging re-enlistments are
welcome." And yet, the newspaper writes, "overall, this plan
marches in the wrong direction. Instead of reflecting and
reinforcing America's core alliances, the new plan dilutes
them."

It is true that the deployments of millions of Americans in Germany
throughout the Cold War in many cases created a special bond
between the two countries. Yet, it clearly also could create
tensions. What should happen at this point is that the redeployment
plan may force a rebalancing of our alliances in a way that could
in the long run persuade our allies to take responsibility for more
of their own defense needs. The notion that a country as wealthy as
Germany should spend a mere one percent of its national income on
defense is insane - and the disparity fosters a lack of
understanding.

What the U.S. administration needs to do now, as it proceeds with
its plans, is to explain itself properly and clearly to the
countries and communities affected. Too often, unfortunately, that
side of diplomacy has been neglected in the Bush administration.
Clearly, redeployment should happen out of strategic necessity, not
an alleged vindictiveness over political differences, and nobody
should be left in any doubt about that.

Helle Dale is director of Foreign Policy and Defense Studies at
the Heritage Foundation. E-mail: helle.dale@heritage.org.